The Nobel Foundation has U-turned on a controversial decision to invite the ambassadors of Russia, Belarus and Iran to the Nobel Prize award ceremony after facing widespread criticism.

The foundation announced in a press release Saturday that ambassadors from the three countries would not be invited, after initially saying that it wanted to involve even those who did not share the values of the Nobel Prize.

Ukraine had condemned the decision to invite the Russian and Belarusian ambassadors, who had been left out of Stockholm’s Nobel Prize awards ceremony last year because of the war in Ukraine. A Swedish member of the European Parliament called the decision “extremely inappropriate.”